The following letters were submitted by Boy Scouts with Troop 188 in Galax:

Bland lunches are wasted

I think our school lunches should be changed.
We once had good-tasting meals, but now our food is bland and dull-tasting and sometimes the servings are small. We can’t even season it with salt and pepper. A lot of this food is wasted.
I’m sure that our cafeteria cooks would love to serve us better food, but their hands are tied due to the new laws.
Please bring back our tastier food.Jed Diamond

Preserve our history

I am interested in the preservation of American History.
Preservation is about deciding what’s important, figuring out how to protect it and passing along an appreciation for what was saved to the next generation.
I believe it is important to preserve American History for a number of reasons. We like to study things and know stuff. History is one of the things we investigate. We want to see how people lived in past life.
We can learn things that apply in the present from things that happened in the past and this allows us to avoid errors made in the past. We can better understand where we might wish to go, based on where we’ve been.
If something was working in the past, it may well continue to work in the present. Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.Elijah Funk

Lindamood helped scouts

I am a 12‑year‑old member of Boy Scout Troop 188 in Galax.
I am writing to tell you about someone who has been a friend of our troop.
Ruby Lindamood has supported our troop in many ways.
She always provides a Christmas dinner for our troop and she has always given every troop member and their family a gift.
She does this to support scouting and to honor her late husband who was the first Eagle Scout in Virginia.
Mrs. Lindamood recently passed away after a long illness but she will always be remembered by our troop.Jack Haga

Help conserve world's water

I am a star scout in Troop 188 of Galax. One thing I am interested in is boating. I like waterskiing, kneeboarding.
I also enjoy fishing and snow skiing.
All these things need water. I think water conservation is very important. I try to take short showers. I also turn the water off when I brush my teeth. We installed nozzles on the water hoses.
Conservation and pollution of our rivers, lakes and streams is very important to me. As a star scout I have learned many ways to conserve and never pollute. I wish everyone would help to conserve our world’s water.Ian Schaeffer

Keep Petty Road clean

I would like to call attention to the tremendous amount of trash dumped on Petty Road.
It has become a nuisance because it piles up on both sides of the road and then rolls down the hills into people’s property.
Deer and animal carcasses are dumped there too. And then dogs drag the parts into people’s yards.
So, please, treat our back roads better and do not litter.Ben Whittle